


(i do not believe we shall ever see how old age looks on you  — you are breaking my heart.)

by Ripley7



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Based on a Tumblr Post, F/F, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Male-Female Friendship, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-07
Updated: 2016-03-07
Packaged: 2018-05-25 07:36:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6186119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ripley7/pseuds/Ripley7
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I want her back,” Clarke slurs against his shoulder, body shaking with sobs that won’t come anymore, “I want her back.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	(i do not believe we shall ever see how old age looks on you  — you are breaking my heart.)

**Author's Note:**

> _“Once, I loved._   
>  _Once, I loved._   
>  _Once, when I couldn’t stop the wind, I broke the chimes.”_   
>  _— Jeanann Verlee._
> 
>  
> 
> the aftermath of losing lexa.

Clarke is drunk **again**.

If Murphy were a lesser man, and god knows he tried, he would turn her away, throw her to the wolves, because he’s not made for this, not made for comfort or sharing grief but in the pit of his stomach, he knows why Clarke is here. She’s not here for him, she’s here for herself, she’s **here** because he’s the only one who had a front seat to the shit show that happened in Polis, she’s here, **every night** , curled up on his bunk bed, because he’s the only one who understands what she lost. Even Octavia doesn’t get it, still doesn’t see past the whole betrayal, doesn’t see how Clarke stumbles through the motions when comes daylight and fuck, he wishes he were anywhere but here but it’s C _larke, and she’s alone,_ and he owes her his life so as long as his involvement is patting awkwardly her back and getting blissfully drunk with her, well it’s the least he can do, especially since the gun was his, even if she doesn’t know that… _yet_ \- if his stomach churns at that thought, he blames it on the alcohol.

There are nights when she’s silent and unmoving and those nights creep him out the most, he can’t bring himself to meet her vacant eyes and instead just keeps slowly refilling her mug until she can’t keep herself upright anymore.

But there are nights, nights like this one, nights when she can’t stop talking, about little things, things she never noticed nor appreciated fully until too late, like how soft Lexa’s smile was when it was for her, how she cried when they kissed, how she looked at her like she had found religion, and Murphy, well, he bites down every single cutting remark he could say, raises his mug in a toast for another kid that died too young, and drinks.  

Murphy doesn’t talk, he never replies, and she never asks him to but tonight is different, tonight is different because there are fresh tears rolling down Clarke’s cheeks and maybe that whole drinking your problems away until you fall asleep isn’t working as well as they are both pretending it is. So when he heaves himself up with a sigh, crosses the room and lets himself fall besides her on the bed and she curls up against him, grabbing his arm, twisting her fingers into his sleeves like a scared kid… he just clenches his jaw and tugs his arm free, before pushing - a bit roughly - on the back of her head with his hand and dropping that same arm around her. He lets her cry, he lets her shake, eyes fixed on the ceiling, until a patch of his shirt is damp with the grief she lets no one else but him see. 

“I want her back,” Clarke slurs against his shoulder, body shaking with sobs that won’t come anymore, “I want her back.”

And it’s the first time she ever mentions anything of the sort, so he can’t really be faulted for the “I know” that slips through and loses itself in Clarke’s hair.

(Tomorrow, he’s gonna have to grab her by the legs, carry her into the bathroom, dump a good bucket of clean water on her and give her a good scrubbing if he has to because if she spends one more night in his bed while smelling like that, he’s gonna have to burn his sheets, but there is still a couple of hours before the dawn, and they are both so very tired of being the casualties of war so yeah, maybe, for now, he can just breathe through his mouth.)

 


End file.
